Not Listening
by dixiedream1n
Summary: And still, he was here.


******A/N:** promptfic: "He should have listened"

In my X-verse, Marie was with Logan about three months before Sabretooth showed up. Entirely platonically at that point, but the bond he had with her in the movie just seemed like it'd take more than a couple of hours to build.

* * *

_You shoulda listened._

That's the first thing that popped into his head, eliciting a low growl as he stood squinting into and sniffing a cold-salt New York Harbor wind, courtesy of a memory too shot full of holes to be often much use. He couldn't even remember who'd actually said it, much less when or where. But there it was, a sardonic comment brought up by what he liked to think of (ironically) as his "human" half. The reason for naming it such of course had its immediate answer from the _other_ half of his mind, a wordless, bare-fanged snarl that was all intense-heat-fury and sharp-bitter-fear-smell and the taste of hot blood in the air.

Logan was a man – not human, yes he _knew_ that, knew nothing about his past life yet his feral race was obvious, but he was _still_ a man – who hated such trite images as angels and demons on shoulders with a disgusted passion; however he found it difficult to ignore the concept when his rational and animal sides disagreed so violently. He didn't have the time to argue it out in his head at the moment; the night sky was full of hurricane wind and lightning storm, and the other feral, the big, dull-witted but sharp-clawed felid who was stalking him from somewhere in the darkness, invisible but heavy-scented, was close. Too close. Too close to ignore, too close to leave behind in his canid side's maddening drive to go to the girl crying out for help two stories above.

_You shoulda listened; you knew nothin' good would come of gettin' involved with a kid. You don't deal with kids, you don't even like kids around. What were you thinkin', letting her in the truck? Look where it's got you now._

He hadn't hardly _been_ thinking, that was the problem. It had been the bare shreds of decency he owned that couldn't leave the shy and yet way too talkative teenager to the mercy of the Canadian winter night. That and a prodding, tugging, impossibly-excited instinct, his animal half way more happy about the girl's appearance in his life than Logan was entirely comfortable with. He'd supposed, at the time, he should be grateful that at least the pull wasn't sexual; the wolf-feral amnesiac was many things, even an unashamed killer, but he did not hurt young girls. Yes, he was grateful for that. Still, the un-explainable way in which he was attracted to her presence wasn't a comfortable thing for him either.

And still, he was here. More than three months later. _Months_ after he'd let that shivering girl into his truck and found her still there and eating breakfast with him the next morning, months after she'd apparently decided she was sticking with him and that insane part of him apparently decided that that was _okay_. Months later, pulled out of his backwoods existence and thrust into a world of other mutants at near-war, doing battle beside some of the most stick-up-the-ass people he'd ever met in their quest to stop actual war before it could begin. In the middle of his own single-minded quest to save the kid who had somehow become his, not in any particular way just _his_. Risking his identity as other-than-human out in the open like he never had, scrabbling now across the surface of an enormous butt-ugly statue in pursuit of another of his own kind, enemy because that other had threatened her, flinging his lean-muscled body through the air of New York City with a ferociously inhuman howl to collide with the larger feral in a snarling, biting, clawing, rolling mass.

This was taking too long, this stalk-and-hide-and-pounce-and fight-and-hide-again. _Too long_, and that was a pain louder than any of the gashes the felid was leaving in his quick-healing flesh. Made him yell in frustration, in fury as he slashed out with his own claws – not natural like the ones curved from his opponent's fingertips, but long and razor-deadly and entirely welcome now in his need to get rid of this enemy and answer the need of the girl trapped and dying above, his total, instinct-driven desperation to get to her, to tear apart those who held her trapped, who had determined to drain her life force for their cause. Nothing, _no one_ could stand in the way of him getting there, and finally, impossibly, he came half-out of battle-haze to feel and see the big felid flung over his shoulder and falling, flailing hundreds of feet to the ocean below. Logan spared no more sight or thought to watching, spinning almost before he could think to do so and howling a defiant-victorious death-threatening battle cry as he tightened furious fists, once more sprung the knife blades a government lab had given him for claws, and uncoiled the whipcord muscles of his body in a tremendous leap upward, stabbing into the metal body of the statue and climbing.

_You shoulda listened._ Way back then, months ago, if he had listened to the side of him that wanted nothing to do with being responsible for that girl, he wouldn't be here now. He'd be safe. He'd be someplace quiet, someplace hidden, someplace... quiet and pensive and _alone_. And she'd be – she probably wouldn't have made it this far. She'd be dead, in the northern wilderness.

To hell with it. It was a_ damn good_ thing he hadn't listened then. And he wasn't listening now. Climbing, leaping, meeting up with his unlikely allies to plot a fast, immediate strategy, he was going to save her. If this was where listening to his feral instincts got him, versus not doing so, he was gonna go with the instincts every time from now on.

He was going to save her. And then he would turn on whatever of her captors remained, and the entire _world_ would find out what happened to anyone that threatened little Marie D'Ancanto. Viciously. Graphically. His sharp eyesight narrowed in on his target as he half-crouched, preparing to allow the wind-walker codenamed Storm to launch him on a massive gust – and when he was flung upward, he leapt as much as he was thrown, blades fully extended, normally hazel eyes shifted fully wild-amber, snarling bloodlust, hatred, love, and protective promise all tied up into one.

Almost two full days later, when he woke up in the X-Men's medlab, barely able to remember exactly what had happened for the rest of that night, he cared only to know that Marie was safe and well. His own obvious injuries – his apparent near-death – meant nothing. Only that he had, if in the end not gained the vengeance he'd craved, at least saved her life. She was there the second time he woke, climbing cautiously onto the edge of his bed, fearful of her own skin's ability to harm him, shedding tears into the blanket over his chest as he stroked tangled hair with tired-clumsy fingers and rumble-purred in his chest for long minutes to soothe her.

She was not his cub. She was too young to be his mate. He didn't know just what his feral instincts had latched onto when they'd driven him to promise to care for her. But if this – feeling this awkward, not-alone warmth deep inside – was where not listening to that little voice in his ear got him... he might never listen to it again.


End file.
